Superbattery: The Next Great Triumph of Engineering

By inventing a superbattery, we will, for example, place both the automobile and trucking industries on an entirely new economic foundation.

By extending the technology of power storage beyond car batteries into the "green" areas of solar, wind, and biomass, we will reconfigure the entire US electric grid. If we do it right, we can create, restore, or repatriate literally millions of jobs, and careers, in energy industries -- both those that exist today and those derived from brand-new technologies.

We will, slowly perhaps but certainly, reduce the suffocating impact of carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, and mute the uproar over climate change.

We might even be able to play all 12,000 songs on our iPod without once recharging the battery!

The beauty part of battery research is that it triggers (so far) barely any political rancor. As far as I can tell, there's no liberal or conservative position on batteries (except for the minor matter of recycling old ones). Developing power-storage technologies that will allow most cars and many power plants to run on emissions-free electricity is a refreshingly technological solution to a social, environmental, and political dilemma.

It's a fix that gores no one's ox -- unless funds now flowing to this vital area of research are bottled up or cut off by politicians with ties to the obvious special interests. As proven by that $7,500 tax break for Chevy Volt and Ford Focus buyers, resources of such magnitude, for an outcome so visionary, do not derive entirely, nor have they ever, from the cautious and short-sighted "market."

Although we're not all aware of it, taxpayers are already underwriting superbattery R&D -- just as we underwrote the Golden Spike, the New York Public Library, and the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Taxpayers will be asked for more -- pennies, really -- before the research succeeds. We should be glad to pay up, if only for the sake of kissing BP and OPEC goodbye?

Some of the greatest advances in civilization have been the work of engineers. The next great engineering advancement is visible. It's in the lab and it is tantalizingly close to solution. How soon the answer emerges depends partly on the sheer ingenuity of the researchers involved, but it also depends on the resources that will be provided -- or denied -- as the race enters the home stretch.

David Benjamin is a Brooklyn-based journalist and novelist who writes occasionally on technology issues, usually from the Luddite point of view.

To keep up with our EV coverage, go to Drive for Innovation and follow the cross-country journey of EE Life editorial director Brian Fuller. On his trip, sponsored by Avnet Express, Fuller is driving a Chevy Volt across America to interview engineers.

Rob I believe we are after the same goals. I've no stick-to-it-iveness to any technology when innovations abound, but as you know, oil and gas is much bigger than the fluids -- it is entire economies that support and surround it. My adverse reaction is to calls for conversion to electric vehicles because they don't burn fossil fuels and are therefore "free", when it comes to energy consumption. It sounds ridiculous to scientists and engineers, but to a general voting public who thinks the moon landing was staged in California and big business is hiding the technology to the flux capacitor, the rhetoric can be disastrous.

I like your transitional approach that may include super-efficient ICEs. I'm rooting for efficient electric motors and transmission systems that are powered by super-efficient on-board turbine generators --- much like a Diesel Locomotive. I spent a few years working in the Fuels and Lubrication Division of the US Air Force Power and Propulsion Directorate... Advanced Turbine Composites and innovations such as the Trapped-Vortex Combustor would go a long way to hybridizing our fossil fuel economy with more efficient use of electricity, all while avoiding an increased reliance on Coal spurred by a political push for rechargeable electric vehicles...

Benj rides again! Great to see your byline here at DN. Thanks for the clear, concise summary of the state of battery technology and the more human side of the politico-social environment that forms a backdrop to developments in this area.

Rob, I'm with you on getting free from oil, but I can't support alternative--or any--internal combustion engine designs. To me, the key word is "combustion," as in, burning.

China uses even more coal than North America. They get 68 percent of their electricity from coal, and goes into the same air we eventually breathe. I've got it in the back of my head that tremendous gains could be made by creating a super-efficient, super lightweight internal combustion engine. And while technology that makes oil use more efficient may be a big step forward in reducing consumption, I really can't see sticking to oil in order to support the industry. I'm glad we didn't support buggy makers or typewriter manufacturers.

Jerry, thanks for the correction. I've used the 50% coal number for a while now, as a Google search returns values of 57%, 54%, and 45% (an average of 52%), but I'm happy to use the www.eia.gov values of 45% from Coal, 24% from Natural Gas (69% fossil fuels). I'm not sure I would count Zinc/Air and Aluminum/Air reaction as 'batteries', but I'll go with fuel cells. The only difficulty being that electrolysis powered from our 69% fossil fuel grid is required to reduce the oxidized Zinc and Aluminum ore into new, battery cells which are non-rechargeable.

I'm happy to learn the off-peak production level of the grid can be utilized to charge 50M EV's, but I'm concerned that would lead to running at 100% peak capacity 24/7. I'm not sure for how long our current infrastructure could handle that duty cycle without failure...

WW, you are so leading us straight to financial ruin. Feel free to keep burning that oil but you pay for it and all it's other costs which we pay in our taxes of about $1T/yr for oil wars, pollution, corporate welfare, balance og payments, etc.

Oil won't slow just because of EV's but instead from slowing demand from higher oil prices and dropping RE costs. So don't blame EV's for FF job losses.

Coal hasn't been 50% for w while now and dropping like flies as they should because they kill 30k, hospitalize 150k/yr in just the US amoung much other costs. Coal, oil get the profits, yaxpayers get the shaft. By the time any number of EV's are on the road coal plants will be far less, about 20-25% of the cleanest, most eff ones.

And Ev's will be the battery pack of the grid allowing it to balance out without having to run costly generators in case of peak demand, saving enough in fact to charge 50M EV's according to utility studies without increasing capacity.

For those who don't know I've been driving EV's at 25% of an ICE's cost or 15 yrs at about 250-600mpg equivalent. So keep paying your oil masters if you want. I'll pass.

Nukes are not being built because they are way overpriced. Not until gen 4-5 smaller, far safer, more cost effective modular reactors come online will it be viable here.

Back to batteries, we already have 2 'air' batteries available techincally. They are Zinc and Alum/air batteries. They are good for about 1k miles/charge, then you have the insides replaced. Trails worked well but no one wanted to build enough and the charging plants to make them work.

I really (really) tried to consume this article from a neutral position, but too many buzzwords and cliches set off my political alarms. Kissing BP and OPEC goodbye? -- so we can embrace GE, GM, and Korea-based LG Chem? Simply changing the name of the organizations that provide energy fixes nothing, other than the spelling of the current boogeymen. We already have a battery that 'breathes in' oxygen from the air. It's called an internal combustion engine. And the hydrocarbon fuel it uses is the product of millions of years of photosynthesis. And the distribution network is already in place and provides countless thousands of jobs. Make it "game over for gasoline" and then figure out how to accommodate all of the displaced careers from exploration, drilling, refinement, transportation, pipeline infrastructure, and convenience stores and gas stations to name a few.

"By extending the technology of power storage beyond car batteries into 'green' areas of solar, wind, and biomass...we will...reduce the suffocating impact of carbon emissions..." Wow. Confusing "Power Production" for "Power Storage" is a common problem in the non-technical media. If all Americans switched to Chevy volts tomorrow, our currently 50% Coal-fired electricity grid will need to charge all of the batteries --- and with no new Nuclear Reactor permits, no unsightly wind turbines off Nantucket and the demise of Solyndra, I can only predict that the electricity shortfall needed to power all of the batteries will necessary come from burning more coal and building more oil-fired power plants. Again --- the theme of Redistribution sucks up all of our debate time, rather than passionately arguing for Innovation.

Here, here!! David, I applaud your strong call to arms to get the private sector and government research dollars behind battery development. I agree that it's a short-sighted view to squash investment here due to lingering concerns about the economy and the still all-out push to promote budget austerity. I love your comment, "We should be glad to pay up, if only for the sake of kissing BP and OPEC goodbye." Ok, maybe not a complete break-up, but it's certainly time in the relationship to start "seeing other people."

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